The Provenance Food & Wine Blog series "Meet Your Makers" is about the people who bring us the goods. There is a great story behind the people and the products we sell at Provenance and we want to share this info with you. We hope you enjoy reading the answers to these questions, all selected by our staff members. Tell us who you want to get to know better and we'll ask!
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Our next guest blogger post is from Mike Bancroft, Executive Director/Founder of
Co-op Hot Sauce. These little bottles of heat are made in Humboldt Park and have been a hit at the shops! Our favorite is the Mole Hot Sauce, but at any given time Co-op has at least 4 or 5 sauces to choose from. Read more on this great little company that's doing a LOT of good!
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What do you hope to accomplish through providing quality products?
With Co-op Sauce we hope to create exciting food goodness that not only helps to sustain itself and all those involved in the making of it, but to generate enough income to pay for the entirety of our general operating budget of the youth arts education and entrepreneurship organization (Co-op Image) and possibly other non government organizations.
Do you personally know the farmers that produce your products?
We know all of the farmers that produce the ingredients for our sauces, including the youth and volunteers that help in the 2 gardens we are directly involved with in Chicago. Many of these farmers we have met through the farmer's markets, such as Montalbano Farms, Piedt Farms, Pine Hill, and Dinge’s. The growers inspire the recipes for all of the local sauces and this year we are excited to continue working them as well as establishing new relationships with farms like Growing Home. These partnerships not only benefit us in the kitchen with amazing Midwestern products but allow for the farmers to offload large amounts of product after market that might otherwise go to waste.
How often do you come out with new products?
As often as I can, that’s my favorite part of getting sauced, but the products are entirely informed by what I can get from our growers. Right now not a whole lot going down but come harvest time it is on, and I can’t wait.
How did you get into this line of business?
I got into this business by accident...or was it "fate by salsa"... either-way I didn’t necessarily picture myself as the hot sauceateria guy in the grand scheme, but I love it. The sauce was born out of recipes I was submitting to my friends and family over 10 years ago. At that point I was calling it Breaking Windy City Hot Sauce (get it?) and it was before my sister and I founded Co-op Image. In 2003 I had a small production of the sauce going at that point, although I think we were emptying dollar store hot sauce bottles into buckets (we ate a lot of wings) and refilled them with what was to become Co-op Hot Sauce. Co-op Image was growing into something that was pretty amazing and the model of the not-for-profit was to sustain itself through its initiatives while maintaining all-free programming for youth. We received the Campbell Co-op Garden in trust from the City of Chicago through Neighborspace in 2004 and we started to try and sell some of the produce in the Humboldt Park Farmer's Market. It was grim, we would sit with our little pile of peppers and some greens while farmers (who had farms) had this awesome cornucopia of stuffs, we couldn’t compete - or make any money for that matter - with the exception of the occasional mercy buy. The kids were the first to point it out as they often worked the early markets doing the math on how much it cost for them to be there and how much we were taking in; it was obvious we needed something that could bolster sales and the hot sauce was it. It was an incredible mess (Anne from Crumb will tell you I still am a cyclone in the kitchen), but it started to work. We manufactured out of my kitchen for awhile, then out of the Co-op Art Center, then to a dedicated kitchen space above Chicago Hot Glass, and finally today we produce out of the back of the Dark Room.
What was the spark that led you to working with food?
I love to eat and cook but what really sparked me to working with food was always being surrounded by chefs who I always considered contemporaries to my own art making. They lived on a schedule similar to mine & were always learning and I was along for the ride. I didn’t put 2 and 2 together as to how important working with food was to me until I started to teach cooking through Chi-Town Chefs at the Co-op Art Center. I can’t live without it: it's a major vent and a source for great inspiration and camaraderie.
What is your favorite story/anecdote that occurred along the way in creating your product?
Three words: Chocolate Habanero Ouch (no one told me they are like twice as hot as regular habs, I was out of commission for hours and the aftermath wasn’t too pretty either).
